Category Archives: Dub Gardeners of the world unite

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Big shout to Youri from the excellent Dub Frontradio showfor playing Jazzmin & Madtone’s Earth Citizen last week (6.26 minutes in the show below). The show also featured an hour of top tunes from artists including Audioart, Jah9 ft Chronnix (above) and Dubblestandart.

As Youri told us “The show’s been running since March 2005 every Wednesday at 11pm on BRUZZ out of Brussels. 52 shows a year digging into all things dub and roots. From chill to steppers, from roots to dub club, from world dub to outer space”. It’s a show well up our street so have a listen to the collection of Dub Font shows on Mixcloud here.

We’ve had some cracking weather in London of late and combined with the rain last week things are coming on strong in the garden. The Crimson FloweredBroad Beans started to bloom at the weekend and they’re looking great! They’re a nice alternative to the black and white flowered ones (which we love as well) and there’s a interesting post about the variety on the Daughter of the Soil (“Adventures in experimental horticulture”) blog here. The blog is well worth having a look at if you love heritage vegetables, seed saving and experimental gardening.The bed at the bottom of the garden is bursting into life as well with the seed potatoes, onions and strawberries starting to reach upwards. It may be a tad early but we’ve already made use of our home-made comfrey liquid which will help them on their way. The bamboo canes that were used as a cat deterrent have now been commissioned elsewhere (helping some tomato plants) and the spuds have been earthed up even more.

Music accompaniment this week is firstly a couple of versions of the excellent pressure and slide rhythm by Hubert Lee then Sugar Minott. On the Rt Hon David Rodigan show last week he played a mini-history of the rhythm including a couple of choice cuts of it by the great Prince Buster here and here.

Also secondly a big shout to our mate Will who recommended the LeMellotron/Pierre Wax 30 mix below. It’s a right musical mixture and one to turn up loud so it can be heard while out in the back garden. The great 2 hr mix is a slice of audio goodness and includes I:Cube, The excellent Mothers “Faith (Yilwani Imfazwe”) with a nice Lee Perry sample and Dennis Coffey and a whole lot more. It also includes the breakbeat/falsetto vocal disco classic “Come into my life” from The Supremes.Roll on more tunes and more sunshine!

Current listening at Weeds HQ are some mixes sent to us by Feminine Hi-Fi after finding out about them via the great Scotch Bonnet Records on Facebook. We contacted the all-women project soundsystem from Brazil who sent us some links to great mixes of Brazilian female reggae vocal tunes compiled byDani I-Pisces from the collective. They’re are well worth investigating! Volume 1 is below and here’s links to Volume 2 and Volume 3. Who said Reggae isn’t outernational?

David Rodigan has told a story on this week’s show about the (late, great) UK mastering engineer John Hassell. Years ago when in a studio in America, he heard that the session before him featured one Frank Sinatra. He asked the production team how it went, and they said it was okay but they were amazed that the record company went for the take where Frank forgot the lyrics. Turns out the tune was called Strangers In The Night (and we all know that “dooby dooby doo” bit at the end.) Brilliant story and I’d love to believe it’s true.

His mention of John Hassell reminded me of a brilliant TV programme from many moons ago where it shows him at the controls (and his wife Felicity giving it a “reeeeewind”) and even has some nice petrol lawn mower and edging shear action at the start of it. What more do you want out of a TV clip? Dub it Mr Hassell!

A nice bit of slow-mo dancehall by Dolomite AKA Seeker called Heartache and Pain as heard on the New Year’s Day Rt Hon David Rodigan show. One to listen to loud when looking through the seed tin and wondering what to get in for spring/summer, and wondering why is there so many carrot seeds left from last year?

Big shout to The TurntableTerrorist Terry C out of Chicago for sending us this pic of his garden from a few years ago. As he emailed this evening “I especially long for it now that we’re in deep winter in Chicago.” We know what you mean, even though the snow and the frost aren’t showing their faces in the UK at the moment but they will.

Check out Terry’s excellent show “Echo Beach” that is a big 10 years old this year on WLUW 88.7 Chicago live here and on the Mixcloud site here.

As it’s says on the WLUW website it’s a “bass-heavy sonic journey through the world of dub, starting with old-school roots and covering dub and dub influenced music including new-school roots, ambient dub, dubhop, dubstep, digi-dub, Asian dub and more from around the globe. Rivers of bass flowing into oceans of dub…all from the shores of Lake Michigan.” A show well up our street and definitely one to tune in to. Cheers to Terry C for playing our tunes on his show. Appreciated!

And while we’re here, here’s a lovely bit of chilled out vibes to celebrate the winter solstice (it’s all uphill from here) as heard on the Rt Hon David Rodigan show this week. Tune!!!